


Tu Fui, Ego Eris

by Rii



Series: Parallel Lines [2]
Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Alternate Timelines, F/F, Gen, Parallel Universes, pocket universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 20:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1563158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rii/pseuds/Rii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The flower is cut, but the root remains.  There is always a witch, and there is always a prince.  All that remains is the telling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tu Fui, Ego Eris

**Author's Note:**

> Mild spoilers for the ending of Madoka the Movie: Rebellion.

“The Lily Bride is mine, Transfer Student, and I am free to treat her as I please!”

And all Madoka had wanted to do was stop what she thought was a simple case of bullying.  “Uh… Lily Bride?”

The green-haired girl smirked, and grabbed the so-called Bride by the wrist, pulling her from the ground.  “Yes, that’s right.  I am _engaged_ to the Lily Bride, and as such, she belongs to _me._ ”

The Bride’s eyes met hers.  They were bruise-colored, behind her red glasses, and they begged for help.

“People aren’t something you can just _own_ ,” Madoka said.  “I don’t know what you mean by Lily Bride, but back off and leave that girl alone.”

“And why should I listen to you?” the green-haired girl said.  “You’re no _Duelist;_ you have no idea what you’re even talking about.”

“Duelist…?” Madoka said.

The green-haired girl laughed.  “Exactly!  So, you have no authority here.  Come, Homura.”  She yanked the Bride’s wrist again.  “We’re leaving.”

The girl - Homura’s - eyes met with Madoka’s again, before she stared at the ground, her face empty.

∞

“Oh, her?  That’s Hitomi,” Elly explained.  “You don’t want to be her enemy, trust me.”

Madoka crossed her arms, thinking.  It didn’t sit right with her.  “She said something about being a Duelist.  You know anything about that?”

“It’s some sort of club, I don’t know,” Elly replied.  “They all have these special rings and they have a clubhouse in the school gardens, but that’s about it.”

The ring on Madoka’s hand, the silver one with the pink gem set in it, felt strangely warm.

“Where in the gardens do they meet?” she asked.

∞

“So you’re telling me that if I defeat you in a duel, then the Lily Bride… _belongs_ to me,” Madoka said. 

“Those are the rules.”  Hitomi held her katana at an arrogant angle, balancing it against her shoulder.  “Of course, you won’t get very far without a sword, Transfer Student.”

“Then, give me a sword,” Madoka said.

∞

The Lily Bride, the girl named Homura, wore a dress that seemed more appropriate for a princess at a state funeral than a bride.  She kept her eyes down as she affixed a pink rose to Madoka’s chest.  “Good luck to you, Kaname-san,” she said, almost whispering.

Pain was knit into that voice.

Madoka wanted nothing more than to remove that invisible burden of ownership from her.

∞

“H-How…!”  Hitomi had fallen to one knee, the rose on her chest ripped to shreds.  “I’m captain of the kendo team!  Nobody can beat me!”

“It doesn’t matter.  The Lily Bride belongs to me, now, doesn’t she?”

Hitomi grit her teeth, her wavy green hair falling in her face.  “She will be mine again, mark my words.”

∞

“Homura-chan, nobody will ever own you again,” Madoka told her.  “I’ll make sure of that.”

Homura smiled, tilting her head.  “Kaname-san, don’t be silly.  _You_ own me now.  I am delighted to be your bride.”

Madoka smiled uneasily, but felt comfort in the fact that, at least, she could make sure that people like Hitomi would never mistreat people as sweet as Homura.

So long as she was able to duel.

∞

“I really don’t want to do this, Kaname-chan, but you leave me no choice.”  The music student, Sayaka Miki, stood before her with a cutlass in her gloved hand.  “Homura-chan belongs with me.  I can treat her better than you ever could.”

The sword in Madoka’s hand had been woven out of pink light, and it felt as natural and easy to control as an extension of herself.

“Homura-chan doesn’t belong to anyone,” she said.  “If I have to beat some sense into you, Sayaka-san, then I will.”

Homura’s night-colored eyes pleaded behind her glasses.

“She needs to be with me,” Sayaka said.  The blue gem on her hand caught the light and glimmered like a beacon.

“All right, then,” Madoka said.  “A beating it is.”

∞

“Sayaka-chan’s really not that bad a person,” Homura told her, as they walked home.  “She just feels very strongly about things, sometimes.  Rushes headlong into them.”

“Doesn’t excuse the fact that she wanted to own you,” Madoka replied.

Homura just smiled back at her.

∞

“Really, Kaname-chan, the best thing for both of us would be for you to surrender.”  Mami Tomoe smiled a poison-honey smile, and bent the tip of her fencing foil.  “This whole Lily Bride business is just causing trouble for us all.”

“I can’t say I disagree with you, Tomoe-senpai,” Madoka said.  “But I’m not going to let you beat me.”

Mami sighed, and readied her foil.  “You’re just letting yourself be used, you know.”

“Nobody’s going to be used by anybody,” Madoka replied.

∞

“What did she mean by that, me being used?” Madoka asked, in the wake of the duel.

“There’s nothing that can be done about the duels,” Homura said.  “The Duelists are chosen and, so long as they exist, I must exist as the Lily Bride for them to compete over.”

Madoka held out her hand, and the pink gem upon it gleamed dark in the sunset.  “This ring is what makes me a Duelist, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Homura replied.

“I don’t even remember where or when I got it,” Madoka said.

“Yes,” Homura replied.

She smiled.

∞

“You’re a fool, Kaname.”  Kyoko Sakura tossed her hair, red as a spider lily, over her shoulder, and bit her mouth into a smile.  “Thinking that what you’re doing is right.”

“I’m doing what I believe is right,” Madoka said.  “Isn’t that what matters?”

“Only if you believe in the truth.”  She gripped her lance with both hands.  “And you’ll never find the truth unless you challenge what you believe in.”

“And you’re speaking from experience?”

Kyoko glanced at Homura, who stood, the placid prize, on the sidelines. 

Her smile as empty as a mirror.

“Yes.”

∞

In the privacy of her room, Kyoko laid Homura down on her bed.

“I don’t know what you’re hiding,” she said, “but I can tell when people are lying to me.”

“I would never lie to you, Sakura-san,” Homura replied.

Kyoko straddled her.

Homura’s face just smiled back below her, soft and satisfied.

“Then, tell me that Madoka Kaname means nothing to you.”

“She means nothing to me.”

Homura lied.

∞

“The truth is what I choose to believe in.”

Madoka stood, tattered and triumphant, over Kyoko’s body.

“And I believe that Homura-chan deserves more than this.  Than being a prize.”

Kyoko looked up at her with half-open eyes.

“You’re a fool.”

Homura held Madoka’s hand, and they left the arena.

∞

“Things are only going to get harder for us, from now on,” Homura told her, after Madoka won her back.

Madoka’s uniform was ripped and she was limping a little, but pain was far from her mind.  “What makes you say that?”

“Where there is light, there must be shadow,” Homura said.

Her shadow had soft edges where it lay on the floor.

“So long as I exist, I will be coveted, and I will be owned.”

“Then I’ll protect you.  For as long as it takes.”

Homura smiled back at her.

∞

The girl Madoka was fighting was named Gertrud.

She could not remember where the girl had come from, nor if she was even a student at the school.

As the black rose from her chest fell, she sobbed.

“I don’t want to go on anymore.”  She curled into herself upon the dueling stage, like the drying chrysalis of a butterfly.  “I want her to stop hurting me.”

Homura didn’t say a word.

∞

“Why do people keep dueling for you?” Madoka asked.

After she’d fought Charlotte, the girl with the candy-violet hair, the watcher of every fencing club meeting.

“They think I’m a key to freedom,” Homura replied.

“Freedom?”

“That if they own me, I will be able to grant them their dreams.”

“You can’t really do that, can you, Homura-chan?” Madoka asked.

“Who’s to say?” Homura replied.

For the first time, Madoka found her smile unconvincing.

∞

“You’re telling me that if I take this ring, then Hitomi will finally… stop ignoring me?”

“Yes."

“And… I’ll stop hurting?”

“Yes.”

The man named Kyuubey, with his pink eyes, his pink hair, had a comforting smile.  A trusting smile.

“It’s all right to be selfish.  Give in to your wishes.  Be as selfish as you want."

The ring on his hand was pure black, and no light shined from it.

“Thank you,” Elly said, and she took it from him.

∞

“I’ve had enough of you.”  Madoka wore her pink rose, held her pink sword.

The man named Kyuubey, whom nobody could remember, whom everybody knew, wore a white rose.

“I’m merely granting wishes,” he said, with his glass smile.  “And with the Lily Bride, I will have the power to make even more of them come true."

“Homura is just an ordinary girl,” Madoka said.  “She can’t grant wishes.  She doesn’t deserve this treatment.”

“Duel me, then.  And we’ll see who’s right.”

∞

“Why do so many people think you can change their lives, Homura-chan?”

Madoka lay on her back in the bed beside Homura.

“That is just what they choose to believe,” Homura replied.

“But it isn’t true, is it?”

“The truth is what you choose to believe,” Homura said.

She used Madoka’s exact words.

∞

The man named Kyuubey was a husk on the floor.

“Do not interfere,” said the witch.

All he could do was wonder who he was, anymore.

∞

“Is there any reason you’ve called this meeting, Kyoko-san?” Mami asked, her legs crossed at the ankle, a teacup in her hand.

“Yes.”

“What is it, then?” Hitomi, the returned exile, asked.

“We’ve got it all wrong,” Kyoko said.  “The Lily Bride isn’t our key to freedom.”

“Then what is?” Hitomi said.

“It’s Kaname.”

Sayaka noted the time on her stopwatch.

A residual memory marked it as exactly on schedule.

∞

“I’m not going to tell you again.  Homura-chan doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Kyoko replied.  “But you belong to her.”

The rose on her breast was red.

“So long as she is yours, you have no choice but to duel."

“I have a choice,” Madoka said.  “My choice is to protect her.”

“That isn’t choice.  That’s duty.”  The lance in her hands was sharp, keen truth.  “I will give you your freedom whether you want it or not.”

Kyoko charged.

Homura looked on.

Judging.

∞

“You would never leave me, would you, Madoka?”

Homura’s hand touched hers in the bed.

“Of course not,” Madoka replied.  “I would never abandon you, Homura-chan.”

Homura knew better.

∞

“All we can do now is wait.”

The apple gleamed with metaphor in Kyoko’s hand.

“Can we trust her to make the right decision?”

Mami looked out onto a dying sun.

“She has made this decision before.”

Sayaka looked at her stopwatch again.

“The question is whether she’ll be allowed a choice in the first place.”

∞

“So many people seem to think that you’d grant their wishes, Homura-chan.”

They lay together on the grass, staring at clouds.

“What would your own wish be?”

“For things to be like this, always,” Homura replied.

A slice of gold at the back of Madoka’s mind reared in protest.

Homura noticed.

∞

“Why is it that nobody ever seems to leave the campus?” Madoka asked.  “I mean, there’s nothing we don’t have here, but surely there’s more out there.”

“What are you talking about?” Elly replied.  “We have everything we need here already.”

The emptiness behind her eyes was like television static.

There had been something Kyoko had said to her.

Homura was not owned by anybody.

But Homura owned her.

∞

The stopwatch in Sayaka’s hand had frozen.

“It’s happening,” she said.

“So she’ll succeed where we failed,” Kyoko said.

Sayaka held her hand.

“Maybe.”

The four parallels and their four roses sat in the garden and waited for the world to end.

∞

Homura was not in their room when Madoka came home from classes.

There was a note on their bed in substitute.

“The Lily Bride is being held at the dueling arena.  This will be the final duel.”

The ring on Madoka’s hand had lost its gleam.

∞

Homura waited for her, alone, at the arena.

“Homura-chan?  Are you okay?”

Madoka rushed to her, into her arms.

The fool.

∞

The witch held her from behind, cradled her head against her neck.

“I told you that my wish was for things to remain this way, always.”

Blood leaked from the blade in Madoka’s belly.

“Are you truly so selfish as to not let me have my own wishes?”

Madoka’s eyes emptied.

Dull, dead gold shined at the edges of her irises.

∞

“And you’re just going to let this repeat itself until you get the desired result, isn’t that it?”

The woman who spoke had appeared from nowhere.  She wore a red dress, a gold crown, and a look of absolute pity on her face, behind her glasses.

Madoka had disappeared from Homura’s arms, leaving behind only the smell of blood and metal.

This woman was the one changing things.

“Who are you?  How did you get in here?” Homura said.

“I went in through the gate, and I shall leave the same way,” the woman replied.

Homura felt something within her, a familiar something.

“What are you doing to this place?  This is _my_ world,” Homura said.

“I truly changed very little,” the woman replied.  “Just tailored it to fit a world I once owned, myself.  And my efforts then were just as futile as yours are now.”

The woman before her was a witch.

Just as Homura was a witch.

  
“You can try to keep her all you want, but it is in her very nature to want to break free.  You cannot contain her.  You can only chase her.  That is our fate.”

The woman before her was Homura, and not-Homura.

“Of course, I can’t stop you.  No more than I could stop myself.”

She held Madoka in her arms, a Pieta, an apology

“Get away from her,” Homura said.

The witch before her had loosened hair, her dress woven out of red lies.

“If you truly desire her happiness, then let her go.”

“I’ll never leave her,” Homura said.  “She needs me.”

“Are you sure it’s not the other way around?”

Homura pulled at the edges of the world, stripping the colors and curtains, the stage. 

“Maybe someday you’ll finally be able to save yourself.”

A prince glimmered in the darkness, all pink hair and hope, and the witch looked over her shoulder, as if being called.

“Nothing lasts forever.  Not even infinity.”

The whole of the world was balled in Homura’s hands, every color, every light, everyone she loved.

“If it doesn’t break the world’s shell, the chick will die without ever being born.”

The witch had disappeared.

“Better to have died without ever knowing pain,” Homura replied, to the emptiness.

She held her world to her chest, and began anew.

∞

“Hey!  Leave her alone!”

Hitomi pulled on Homura’s arm thoughtlessly, her face pulled into a rotten smirk.

“Or you’ll do _what?_ ”

Madoka, her hair cut short, her eyes full of that kind determination, readied her fists.

“Or I’ll make you regret it.” 

A pink gem shone on her finger.

 Homura smiled.

This time, things would be better.

∞

 Anthy looked behind her, from the sea of doors, and she saw the little world tumble recursively into itself, gathering momentum and imperfection and regret.

“She’ll find her way.”

She felt Utena’s hand in hers. 

 “She’s you, after all.”

 Anthy squeezed her grip.

 “Yes.”

 And she hoped.

**Author's Note:**

> The Sea of Doors is a mild reference to Bioshock Infinite. It's an excellent metaphor for the multiverse and works well for this series of parallel fics.
> 
> Parallels are as follows:
> 
> Madoka ∞ Utena  
> Homura ∞ Anthy  
> Hitomi ∞ Saionji  
> H.N. Elly ∞ Wakaba  
> Sayaka ∞ Miki  
> Mami ∞ Juri  
> Kyoko ∞ Touga  
> Gertrud ∞ Kanae  
> Charlotte ∞ Shiori  
> Kyuubey ∞ Mikage
> 
> Truly, very little had to be changed.


End file.
